Traditional Sourdough Pancakes

Sourdough pancakes keep us going through the winter when the days are short and cold. They have staying power – like soaked porridge or baked oatmeal. As my grandfather said, sourdough pancakes make for a breakfast that’ll stick to your ribs. And on those cold days when we make our way outside for sledding or snowshoeing, I make these pancakes for they offer satiety that will last well into the afternoon.

And for my little boy, sourdough pancakes are always a favorite – like Dutch baby pancakes. So I make them with joy because it delights me to see his delight.

Unlike traditional pancakes, the sourdough version offers a more complex flavor – they’re tarter, richer and slightly more dense. I typically serve them with pats of grassfed butter, billows of fresh raw cream (you can find a supplier here), fruit and a touch of raw honey or real maple syrup (you can find it here). Quite often, though, I make my own fruit syrups out of butter and fruit juice.

Why Sourdough

There was a time, not too long ago, that all breads were sourdough, and that every cook kept a crock of yeasty flour and water bubbling away in her larder. It was fed daily – scraps of dough or more flour and water – and she would dip into the crock, and pull out starter to make breads, biscuits and even old-world sweets like Election Cake. By contrast, granulated commercial baking yeast has only been made available very recently.

The traditional process of sourdough fermentation not only yields beautiful breads, biscuits and pastries, but it also enhances the nutrient profile of grains – deactivating naturally occurring antinutrients while also increasing folate content and the availability of minerals which is why the grains I serve my family are, invariably, soaked, sprouted or soured.

How to Get Your Sourdough Started

To prepare sourdough pancakes, you’ll need to first tend a sourdough starter. To prepare a starter, you’ll need to whisk a bit of flour and water together, and, gradually add more flour and water each day for about a week. The carbohydrates in the flour will feed wild yeast that give your sourdough breads loft and lactobacillus bacteria that give it flavor.

Newcomers to sourdough greatly benefit from incorporating an existing sourdough culture into their first starter – this helps to achieve consistent results in flavor, rise and texture. You can find sourdough cultures online (see sources) or through friends. You can also follow my method for how to make a sourdough starter here as all sourdough recipes posted at Nourished Kitchen rely on this starter.

Tart and rich with eggs and whole grain flour, these sourdough pancakes are an excellent way to use up excess sourdough starter. You can learn more about making sourdough starter here.

Ingredients

2 cups sourdough starter

1 cup sifted flour, (buckwheat, einkorn, spelt, wheat etc.)

2 eggs, (beaten)

½ teaspoon unrefined sea salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

butter, coconut oil or ghee, (for frying the pancakes)

Instructions

Beat sourdough starter with flour, then place the batter into a mixing bowl, cover it and allow it to rest at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours.

Punch down the sourdough if it has risen, then beat in the eggs, salt and baking soda. If your batter is too thick, thin it with a bit of milk, cream or water.

Warm a skillet over medium-high heat, drop in enough butter to prevent the pancakes from sticking (about 1 tablespoon). When the butter melts, reduce the heat to medium-low, then spoon ¼ cup of batter into the pan. Cook each pancake until bubbles begin to rise to the surface - about 2 to 3 minutes, then flip and continue to cook a further 2 to 3 minutes. Continue working in batches, adding more butter as necessary, until the batter is exhausted. Serve warm with fresh fruit, butter, cream and syrup or honey.

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What people are saying

This sounds great and I would like to try making the starter.
How much is ‘a bit of flour and water’? Tablespoon, half a cup, a cup or more?
Is it left uncovered, you mentioned it collects yeast particles from the air?
Does any flour work?

Any flour works as long as it hasen’t been bleached. I used a half cup each of filtered water and whole wheat flour (I also tried water and brown rice sorghum flour with another starter), followed by everyday feedings of 1/4 cup of flour and 2 tablespoons of water. When the starter looks bubbly it is ready. If it starts to make a liquid that seperates it should be fed and stirred and put into the fridge. When sitting at room temperature it should have a cloth covering it so air can flow in but bugs stay out. In the fridge you should use a lid.

These were lovely. i’ve been meaning to try them for a long time because I am one of those people who can’t stand to throw away the “extra’ starter when i feed. i put peaches in them which I had frozen from the summer. mmmm, thanks.

A ‘bit’ of flour and water would be 1/2 cup of flour and enough water to make it the consistency of batter.
I only use rye flour for the sour dough. Let it set uncovered or cover it with a thin cloth. Real sour dough is only made from rye flour and water.

Yeah, wheat or teff is just as real as rye. Rye just happens to be an easier grain to ferment, but doesn’t make it any more real than ferments made with other grains. With wheat, I think it helps to leave a little of the bran/germ if sifted. But the problems with wheat are mainly when doing a spontaneous ferment, from scratch. If using an established sourdough, in my experience, it’s easy to get the bubbles going.

Hi, I love you posts! I started my sourdough starter from your recipe today…and I would love to try these pancakes. My son loves kale pancakes…but I want to use them with this recipe, and just add the kale…should I cook the kale and blend everything or blend uncooked kale with most of the recipe then add the sourdough starter before making them?

I have followed your site for years and really love it—but I still feel intimidated by culturing and fermenting and starters. They seem to need so much attention and be so finicky (I’ve had a failed kombucha experiment) and I’m not sure where to start—which starter type, which recipe, etc. But this sourdough pancake recipe, which you just posted on facebook, seems so doable and easy and delicious! I can’t WAIT to give it a try.

So I made these pancakes today with my new baby (a sourdough starter I got from a friend). They would have made excellent English muffins, but they weren’t really pancakey, too chewy and bready. I’ve narrowed the problem down to one of two things – I only had one egg (tomorrow is grocery day) and my batter was a bit thick. Do you think the second egg and maybe some more milk (or butter or coconut oil?) would make them more pancakey or do these turn out a bit on the chewy/English muffiny side for you, too?

I am pretty excited that my starter did rise and tastes like real sourdough, though! Definitely time for some bread baking soon!

Sourdough quick-bread recipes use baking soda as a leavening agent. Since the rise in these recipes needs to happen quickly, we rely on baking soda. Natural Sourdough requires time (just like a yeasted dough) to rise.

Also sourdough is acid, baking soda is alkaline so the sourdough releases the carbon in the baking soda (or bicarbonate of soda as its called in the UK). This makes the pancakes extra bubbly. There is actually no need to rely on leavening your mix overnight as the bicarbonate will do the work for you.

Yes, sourdough is acid, and baking soda is alkaline which is why we combine them right before cooking. That said, this recipe doesn’t rely on overnight soaking for leavening; rather, that practice increases the bioavailability of minerals in the additional flours. As this recipe uses starter that hasn’t been proofed, the dough will not necessarily rise which is why it’s important to use baking soda.

Thank you for your recipe. I just made the most fab sourdough pancakes for the first time using your instructions for the pancakes and starter. I wasn’t sure the started smelled right and I hoped it would turn out well. It did and it was so easy.

My girls approved the recipe and both only managed one pancake as it is quite filling to my traditional American pancake recipe.

I will continue to use this starter and recipe. I’ll even try out the bread recipe as I have always wanted to make my own sourdough bread.

Oh my, I am in love!!! I will never use another pancake recipe. I must confess that I am not a purist. I have never followed a recipe exactly and this was no exception but I don’t think you would mind my tweaks as they are just about my personal preferences. I will share them though as I believe they complimented your original. I mean you no offence.

I used 3 eggs instead of 2 and 1/4 cup of almond meal. I also added a dash of vanilla ( i just love vanilla) and 2 tbl coconut sugar and finally about 1/3 of almond milk.

The batter became so light and fluffy it was like a cloud in a bowl and even though one of the pancakes was over cooked because I got caught up doing dishes, it ended up staying light and fluffy and you couldn’t tell I’d forgotten it in the pan. The rich tanginess of these pancakes was something else altogether. I’m in love….did I say that already?

just made these for breakfast and was surprised at how fluffy and light these pancakes were. made with spelt flour they had a subtle nutty taste that went perfect with the berry sauce and yoghurt I topped them with. definately my number one pancake now.

How delightful! I’m going to get a starter going once I get some free time and these will be the first thing I make. Thank you for including the information about why it’s important to ferment grains if we want to enjoy them and be healthy. I think that’s something that hardly anyone knows these days.

I’m traveling and forgot to write down the sourdough pancake recipe from your book. It’s a recipe that is was basically sourdough starter, baking soda, and maybe one other thing. Would you be willing to post that here? I won’t be home for 4 weeks and I’m traveling with my sourdough starter.

Wow.. This looks fantastic! I’ll have to make this for my husband for his birthday breakfast. I already have sourdough starter in my fridge that my husband made from the method his mother has been practicing for years.
Thanks for pointing out the value of good grains. I think we tend to quickly make a villain out of just one ingredient. Like you pointed out, it’s a lot more complex than that I believe.

I have a Korean cooking blog with step-by-step tutorial videos, focused on healthy and simple recipes. And fermentation has been a big part of my life since fermented food is a big part of Korean cuisine. I just recently found out about your blog. What an inspiration!

After mixing my starter and flour together, I have a ball of dough…that looks better than the ball I’ve got going for your (no-knead) sourdough bread…is this what I’m supposed to have at this step or should it be more batter-like?